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Since I covered the news last Autumn of the business failure of Mondragon’s federated cooperative Fagor Electrodomésticos, I should probably give you an update – not least because of Mondragon’s iconic status in the coop world.

About 1000-1200 employees of Electrodomésticos were members of the cooperative, and the rest of the Mondragon family of coops is now trying to do what it can to find work for them elsewhere in the group, or to help provide them with favourable terms for early retirement. According to the international producer coop federation Cicopa, a total of 417 ex-members of Electrodomésticos are now re-employed in other coops in the group.

Electrodomésticos’s bankruptcy is the biggest test which Mondragon has had to face, but – contrary to what some media comments have suggested – it represents the failure of one particular business entity, and not the whole Mondragon initiative.